


For The First Time Forever

by slightlyworriedhuman



Series: PT5D [1]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Flashbacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Scene from the show expanded upon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-11-04 20:30:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17905112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slightlyworriedhuman/pseuds/slightlyworriedhuman
Summary: Looking back on it, it was idiotic of him to believe that he would get back from all of that even slightly mentally unscathed. He’d expected, even believed for a while that he had lost his mind fully. After all, it did make quite a lot of sense, especially from an outsider’s perspective.  Even with the insanity of his childhood, of growing up a superhero in the house of a stone-hearted old man and a robotic mother, nothing could quite have prepared him for the earth-shattering circumstances of finding himself alone in the apocalypse for thirty years.Five's experiences with PTSD after coming back. Set after the apocalypse has been averted without de-aging.





	For The First Time Forever

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is intended to explore Five's PTSD after coming back from the apocalypse. I have PTSD and I want to write about a character I love that seems to canonically have it (the flashback in the car that is chapter one here being a strong point for my reasoning). If it seems to you I am portraying PTSD wrong, I am writing it as best as I can according to how I experience it; our experiences may be different. 
> 
> Apologies for mistakes; my life is void of a beta reader.

Looking back on it, it was idiotic of him to believe that he would get back from all of that even slightly mentally unscathed. He’d expected, even believed for a while that he had lost his mind fully. After all, it did make quite a lot of sense, especially from an outsider’s perspective. Even with the insanity of his childhood, of growing up a superhero in the house of a stone-hearted old man and a robotic mother, nothing could quite have prepared him for the earth-shattering circumstances of finding himself alone in the apocalypse for thirty years. Maybe he had imagined the last 45 years of his miserable, spite-fuelled life. But once he had gotten past the thought that perhaps he was crazy-- the proof was quite clear, what with the appearances of his former employers armed with guns and a family aged 17 years with about the exact same emotional maturity they had had when he’d left-- he had realized in a distasteful revelation that there was still the issue of, well, every other mental scar his past had left him. Funnily enough, it wasn’t even the past full of murder and violence that was the first to hit him, something he later looked back on with a humourless smile. The countless deaths he had caused to civilians and figures of importance in his efforts to maintain a proper time stream and reunite with his family (if it could really be called that) seemed to hold no stain on his conscience, though he had certainly spilled enough blood to expect one. No, the first thing that his mind decided to spring on him out of the blue was the haunting image of the very circumstances he had tried to escape from for thirty years. How ironic, considering how close he was to his past. 

\- 

He had been sitting in the car for at least an hour or three at this point, staring steadfastly at the building across from where he was parked. Lance or George or whatever the hell his name was wasn’t probably going to leave for a while, but he couldn’t stand to sit at the house, waiting and wondering. School must have been released not long ago; the streets before him had small herds of teenagers and children walking across, talking and laughing. A small smile, tight and gone in an instant, flitted across his face as a group passed before his car. One of them kicked a small chunk of cement, and it took a moment for his to comprehend what the object was. Blinking, he furrowed his brows, trying to find the object again-- why would he be kicking cement?-- but the feeling of soft fluttering against his face distracted him. The light in the van seemed to darken, and when he turned his head, his eyes latched onto small flakes of ash drifting down from the roof, patterning his blazer like dirty snow, the odor of burning swirling through the van. His breath caught, and when he whirled back to the windscreen, the sight of the pristine building and scruffy school children had disappeared, replaced with-- 

His door was open, and he was climbing out, the uneven and broken terrain crunching beneath his shoe as he stepped. The smell of smoke and dust and heatdeath seemed to hit him at full force, a burning in his nose and a taste of ash on his tongue. The burgandy paint of the van was cracked and stained almost white with ash as if it had sat through an inferno. Whirling around, Five’s eyes darted from rubble to rubble, fire to fire, everything around him broken and burnt and dead just as it had been, just as it was. The smoky air caught in his lungs, the familiar ache of filthy oxygen pervading his tissue just as it had 45 years ago painfully familiar. 45 years ago? No, this was now, wasn’t it, Number Five experiencing the apocalypse in a 13 year old body for the first time again, for the first time forever. Sweat trickled down the side of his face, and a low moan escaped him, a gasp of “No…” as his eyes scanned the horizon. Nothing but yellow dust blocking the shadowy silhouettes of fallen buildings, nothing but empty silence and dry wind. 

_Five._

He gasped again, and the dust swirled down his throat, coating his mouth with the taste of dust and destruction. His lips felt like they were cracking, his skin buzzing with panic and adrenaline. Was he back? Had he imagined not the apocalypse, but its end? 

_Five!_

His brain had seemed to stutter to a halt as he stumbled back, almost tripping over a piece of rubble. The ash swirled around him, flickering across his vision like television static, and he could feel it settling on his exposed knees and hands and face, still hot, still burning. 

_Hey, Five._

Another gasp for air, (god, where had his oxygen gone?) and more ash coated his lips and tongue, shot into his lungs. He was alone again. He had failed. He was hopeless. It was all gone, gone. His eyes were open in horror, and his lips pulled back painfully over his teeth as a scream bubbled up in his throat. _“NO!!”_

“Five!” 

He jerked his head to the side, eyes wide, gasping for air as his hands clenched against the smooth padding of the driver’s seat. Luther was rapping on the passenger window, irritation on his face. The car was clean of ash, the air cool and void of smoke. Five’s heart pounded unevenly in his throat, and he has to bite down a wave of pitiful relief as Luther opened the door, forcing himself into the car. Turning away as the hulking man muttered in annoyance at the small size of the van, he peered out the window, trying to calm himself so he could properly scold the young man. The schoolboys were almost rounding the corner, kicking a small ball. Mouth twisting, he straightened his blazer, surreptitiously brushing off any ash his mind may have conjured, before turning to Luther with distaste. 

The taste of ash still lingered.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr @officialfivehargreeves; I plan to post some artwork there soon along with general things about Umbrella Academy.
> 
> I've decided to leave this work as a one-shot, and post what was going to be a follow up chapter separately.


End file.
